Say Anything Blog

In the Grand Forks Herald today opinion editor Tom Dennis suggests that concerns over the 4.7 million acre National Heritage Area land grab are exaggerated, though he also suggests that the scope of the land designation should be limited (read my past posts on the issue here):

The problem is the Heritage Area encompasses five whole counties bordering the Missouri River, including the entire city of Bismarck. The problem also is that the federal designation caught a lot of residents by surprise, raising suspicion of the supporters and Washington’s motives.

Criticism has been hot and heavy as a result. “A 4.7-million-acre land grab,” blogger and talk-show host Rob Port of Minot called the project. “The largest regulatory taking of private property in the history of North Dakota,” the North Dakota Farm Bureau agreed.

Those are wild exaggerations: The Heritage Area designation doesn’t infringe property rights in any direct way. In fact, the law creating the Heritage Area bars the coordinating board from using federal money to buy land.

Still, that board could use federal dollars to persuade local governments to tighten zoning laws, as critics suggest. In other states, Heritage Area designations have figured in such zoning disputes.

But read the “nut graf” again: The Heritage Area’s purpose isn’t five counties wide. It’s to “preserve and promote places like Knife River Indian Villages,” provide for “better signs” and so on. Those are noncontroversial goals — and they suggest a solution:

The area’s boundaries simply should be pulled in to the designated sites. If the goal is to protect existing sites along the Missouri River, then the Heritage Area doesn’t need to be five counties in size. Instead, the area’s scope should be narrowed so that rural Mercer County residents, among others, don’t have to worry about zoning laws being changed.

I think Dennis is working a little too hard to have an appearance of even-handedness with this op/ed when, really, the perpetrators of this boondoggle are deserving of no such thing.

As Dennis notes, this designation is more than just a few areas along the Missouri River.  We’re talking about 4.7 million acres of private land including private property in urban, municipal areas such as Bismarck/Mandan.  He also notes that while federal law prohibits the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation, they can certainly use our federal tax dollars - $10 million of which will be appropriated to them over the next 15 years - to show up at every county, township and municipal meeting to convince the actual regulators to do things their way.  Meaning that property owners who don’t want to go along with this nonsense now have to show up and defend themselves against their own tax dollars.

But what Dennis doesn’t give nearly enough attention to is the way this was done.  Local authorities such as county commissions weren’t alerted to this designation before it happened.  They were alerted to the potential for a feasibility study that would only include 500,000 acres.  Not 4.7 million acres.  What’s more, the actual private property owners weren’t notified at all.  They simply woke up one morning and found that they’d been opted into this designation with, at least originally, no way to opt out (information on how to opt out now is here).  Senator Dorgan hassince put legislation into place that does allow property owners to opt out, but as the North Dakota Policy Council notes that’s still no guarantee that their property rights are going to be protected.

Even after opting out, the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation (the private board that will be developing the management plan for this land designation) will still be lobbying local regulatory authorities do to things their way.  And no land owner can opt out from under that authority.

What is baffling is how people like Dennis don’t seem at all concerned that property owners were opted into this boondoggle without ever having been notified.  That, at least initially, they had no way to opt-out once in.  There also seems to be no concern at all that Tracy Potter and his foundation board - who are in no way accountable via election or otherwise to the land owners they will soon be developing plans for - got a 4.7 million land designation and $10 million in our tax dollars without ever having developed a plan for what they actually want to do.

Though that’s now becoming clear.  As an illustration of just how dangerous this really is, last night during my interview with Wes Klein of the North Dakota Farm Bureau on my radio show (click here to listen) he told me of a land owner in Mercer County who had been offered a coal lease that would allow the development of resources on his land.  The folks who manage the Knife River Indian Village, who will be among the beneficiaries of this NHA designation, learned of the coal lease and managed to get it withdrawn.

Another illustration: During my debate with Senator Tracy Potter on the Scott Hennen (listen here) show he kept telling me that the “entire state of Tennessee is a national heritage area” and suggested that nobody there was having any problems.  So I invited Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center on my show.  Mr. DeWeese was active in opposing NHA designations in Tennessee and told me of a land owner there who wasn’t allowed to remodel his home because it was in a national heritage area land designation (listen to that interview here).

The threat to property rights by national heritage area designations, and the unelected but well-funded (by our tax dollars) “private” boards that manage them, is palpable.  Even if some don’t want to recognize it.